child psych exam 1

The flashcards below were created by user
dmw1204
on FreezingBlue Flashcards.

Suppose you found out that there was a strong positive correlation between the number of minutes parents spend reading to children and the number
of minutes parents spend engaging in athletic activity with children. If you conclude that engaging in high levels of athletic activity with children causes
parents to read to them more, which of the following problems would be MOST likely to occur?

third-variable problem

Which of the following statements reflects what the textbook maintains
is the best answer to the question of whether development is fundamentally
continuous or discontinuous?

Whether development is fundamentally continuous or discontinuous depends on perspective—how development is examined as well as how often it is examined.

The emergence of theories such as those of Freud and Watson in the early twentieth century reflected the:

incorporation of research findings into the study of child development.

Longitudinal designs

follow same children over a period of time.

Which of the following items is NOT one of the four factors Scarr identified as involved in the differences among siblings?

sociocultural context

Which of the following statements about longitudinal design is true?

. Loss of participants can threaten external validity

A researcher is interested in the development of depression. She interviews children ages 5, 9, and 13 about their depressive symptoms. This is
an example of which type of design?

cross-sectional

One of the best-known stage theories of cognitive development is the
theory of:

Piaget

Which of the following items would NOT be considered part of the
sociocultural context involved in an American child's language development?

number of words in a child's vocabulary

Stage theories regard development as:

discontinuous

With which of the following statements would stage theorists disagree?

A child's entry into a new stage involves a gradual shift from one way of experiencing the world to a different way of experiencing it.

“Nurture” refers to all of the following EXCEPT:

genetic predisposition towards elevated cortisol levels.

Which of the following activities is NOT a core component of effortful attention?

exerting effort on tasks

The “baby biography” was developed by:

Darwin

Which of Scarr's factors is related to the theme of the “active” child?

different choices of environment

Which of the following research designs allows researchers to infer cause-and-effect associations between variables?

experimental

Which of the following statements about naturalistic observation is NOT true?

Researchers must ensure that the effects they observe are due to the variables they intentionally manipulated.

Who bears the highest responsibility for ensuring that children are unharmed when participating in psychological research?

individual researcher

The extent to which two variables are related is referred to as their:

correlation

Consider the research
on preschoolers' ability to provide accurate testimony about past
events discussed in the text. Of the following pieces of advice, which
one would be the MOST important to tell an interviewer prior to
interviewing a young child?

none of the answers is correct

In the United States, which of the following substances is the MOST common cause of injury to the fetal brain?

alcohol

Which of the following events is thought to be apoptosis?

death of cells in between the ridges on the hand plate

It is difficult to isolate the effects of malnutrition on prenatal development because malnutrition often coincides with:

poverty

Which of the following statements about the “survival of the fittest” principle and conception is true?

The sperm that manage to reach the egg are likely to be healthy, as sperm with serious defects tend to be unable to reach the egg.

Which of the following statements about fetal exposure to alcohol is NOT true?

The fetus smells alcohol through the amniotic sac.

Which of the following statements about the fetal birth experience is true?

The forcing of amniotic fluid from the fetus's body as it is compressed in the birth canal promotes the newborn's first breath.

Which of the
following is the best estimate of the percentage of pregnancies in the
United States that end in spontaneous abortion, or miscarriage, prior to
the third week?

45 %

Of the millions of sperm that enter the vagina, how many get close to the egg?

approximately 200

In
general, prenatal development occurs in such a manner that areas close
to the ______ develop earlier than areas farther away from it.

head

A fetus's decreased response to a repeated stimulus is termed:

habituation

Which of the following statements about
apoptosis is true?

Apoptosis is a necessary part of development.

Which of the following statements about the effects of cigarette smoke on a fetus is true?

The fetus gets less oxygen when its mother smokes.

Which of the following substances is NOT considered a teratogen?

poor nutrition

Stem cells:

are flexible in function.

The three layers of the inner cell mass develop into:

different parts of the body of the embryo.

Habituation involves ________ of the heart rate.

deceleration

Which of the following statements about the newborn REM versus non-REM sleep is true?

Newborns spend proportionately more time in REM sleep than do adults.

Which sense is LEAST stimulated in the uterus?

sight

Smoking by pregnant women does NOT contribute to which of the following conditions in the unborn child?

increased risk of FASD

Tiffany Field and her colleagues demonstrated that low-birth-weight newborns can benefit from:

massage

Which of the following items is a direct contributor to a child's genotype?

parent's genotype

A
twin study is conducted to examine the role of genetics and environment
on the fondness of individuals for chocolate. Which of the following
results would lead to the conclusion that genetic factors are important
in the development of this trait?

Identical twins are more similar on the trait than fraternal twins.

Marked changes in physical development that have occurred over generations are referred to as:

secular trends

Which of the following statements about the chromosomes that parents pass on to their offspring is true?

Parents' chromosome pairs are shuffled randomly and crossing over occurs; thus parents pass on chromosomes that are constituted differently than their own.

Brain cells that are specialized for transmitting electrical messages are called:

neurons

synapses

are the connections between neurons.

If an individual is heterozygous for a trait, he has inherited:

two different alleles for that trait.

A recessive gene governs Trait M. If a child exhibits Trait M, then:

both her parents must have the recessive gene for Trait M.

Parents who reward their children with sweets for eating vegetables are likely to be influencing their children to:

dislike vegetables even more and have a stronger preference for sweet, fatty foods.

Which of the following statements about physical growth is true?

none of the statements are true

The primary effect of nonshared environmental factors is to:

increase the differences among family members.

Which of the following methods for examining the specific areas of the
brain associated with particular behaviors, thoughts, and feelings is most
likely to be used with infants and young children?

electrophysiological recording

Twin studies compare:

identical twins to fraternal twins.

Many psychiatric and behavioral disorders are believed to involve:

polygenic inheritance.

The folds of the cerebral cortex:

allow more cortex to be packed into a small area.

The amount of variability of a trait that is due to genetic factors is
referred to as:

heritability

Children share ______ of their genetic material with each of their
grandparents.

one-quarter

All the outcomes that could theoretically result from a given genotype
are referred to as the:

norm of reaction

The three main components of neurons are:

cell body, dendrites, axon

Which of the following statements is an example of personification?

Rebecca tells her father that her kitty is sad that he can't go on vacation with the family

The mutual understanding that people share during communication is referred to as:

intersubjectivity

Joint attention begins in:

late infancy

Children first come to think abstractly and reason hypothetically in Piaget's ________ stage.

formal operations

Dr. Brown conducts a
study in which participants are presented with the pendulum problem
described in the text and are asked to determine which factor or factors
influence the amount of time it takes the pendulum to swing through a
complete arc: the length of the string, the heaviness of the weight, the
height from which the weight is dropped, or some combination of these
factors. Which of the following comparisons is MOST likely to be made by
an individual in Piaget's formal operations stage?

light weight on short string dropped from high position versus light weight on short string dropped from lower position

Miguel
is sitting in his high chair at breakfast time. As if to drive his
parents crazy, Miguel picks up each and every piece of food, from mushy
peaches to crunchy Cheerios, and drops it onto the floor. Sometimes he
drops just one piece, and sometimes he drops multiple pieces
simultaneously, as if to see if there is a difference in the result. As
he drops each piece, he carefully watches as it hits the floor.
According to Piaget, Miguel is most likely to be what age?

16 months

According to dynamic-systems theories, which of the following aspects is a constant across the process of development?

change

Austin
is presented with the pendulum problem described in the text. He begins
his experiments with the belief that the heaviness of the weight is the
most important factor, tests his belief with unsystematic experiments,
and concludes that his belief is accurate even though no clear
conclusion could be drawn. Austin is in Piaget's ________ stage.

concrete operations

Which of the following views best represents information-processing theories?

child as computational system

Information-processing theories include which of the following processes?

the use of rules and strategies

According to information-processing theories, which of the following
lists is the typical problem-solving sequence?

goal, obstacle, strategy

Myelination does all of the following processes EXCEPT:

enhance the abilty to resist distractions.

Amy and her father are playing with an
interesting squeaky toy. Amy's father is squeezing the toy in front of Amy.
Amy is very excited and reaches for the toy. Amy's father, however, quickly hides
the toy behind his back. At this point, Amy turns away from her father and
begins to look at the ladybug design on her dress. Amy is probably
approximately what age?

6-months

Piaget believed that infants develop the concept of object permanence at
approximately:

12 months

According to dynamic-systems theories, ________ is NOT related to
children's selection among alternative approaches to a problem.

similarity to other approaches

Children's general knowledge about vehicles is an example of information
stored in:

long-term memory

Information-processing theories suggest that teachers ________ to help
their students learn?

provide an environment that can be actively experienced by children

Smith, Thelen, and their colleagues concluded that the A-not-B task,
which is generally viewed as a measure of conceptual understanding, is
influenced by motor activities and attention. This conclusion was reached from
within the ________ approach.

dynamic-systems

The visual cortex is especially active in ________ memory for sights.

sensory

Of sensation and perception, ________ involves the organization and interpretation of information.

perception

Which
of the following statements about the association between speed of
habituation in infancy and general cognitive ability is true?

There is a substantial association between habituation in infancy and general cognitive ability even into adulthood.

Which
of the following statements about research on infants' and adults'
ability to differentiate between pairs of human faces and between pairs
of monkey faces is true?

At 6 months of age, infants can successfully differentiate between pairs of human faces and between pairs of monkey faces, but older infants and adults have lost the ability to differentiate between monkey faces.

Relative size is an example of which of the following types of depth cues?

pictorial

Before the age of 4 months, which of the following types of exploration of the environment is most common?

oral

The change in retinal
image size as a moving object gets closer, causing more and more of the
background to be occluded, is referred to as:

optical expansion

Optical expansion is a cue used to perceive:

depth

Which cue is most important for object segregation?

common movement

Research by
Baillargeon in which infants looked longer at a screen that rotated 180
degrees than at a screen that rotated up and stopped at the top of a box
used the ________ paradigm in the test of whether the infants were able
to mentally represent the box

violation-of-expectancy

________ indicates learning through classical conditioning.

The occurrence of the CR just before the CS

Two
infants of different ages, Diego and Hannah, are tested with the
preferential-looking technique to determine their visual acuity. A series of
black-and-white-striped patterns are presented individually next to a gray
square. Diego can distinguish stripes that are narrower than the stripes Hannah
can distinguish. Compared to Hannah, Diego has:

better contrast sensitivity

Binocular
disparity results from:

the distance between a person's two eyes.

Which
of the following approaches do many current theorists of motor development,
including Esther Thelen, take?

dynamic-systems approach

A
6-month-old infant is trying very hard to reach a colorful rattle that is on
the floor in front of her. The infant's mother mistakenly drops a blanket over
the rattle, concealing it from the infant. The infant reacts by looking away
from the covered rattle and picking up another nearby toy. How would Piaget
attribute the infant's reaction?

The infant lacks object permanence.

The
greatest worry of parents who are concerned about the habituation effect of
their children watching violent acts on television is that that their children
will:

cease to be shocked by violence

The
process of extracting from the environment elements that remain stable is
referred to as:

differentiation

Which
of the following reflexes is NOT known to have any adaptive significance?

tonic neck reflex

The
integration of separate elements in a visual display into a single coherent
pattern enables individuals to perceive a(n):